Can we detect quantum behaviour in viruses?

Mar 11, 2010

(PhysOrg.com) -- The weird world of quantum mechanics describes the strange, often contradictory, behaviour of small inanimate objects such as atoms. Researchers have now started looking for ways to detect quantum properties in more complex and larger entities, possibly even living organisms.

A German-Spanish research group, split between the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching and the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), is using the principles of an iconic quantum mechanics thought experiment - Schrödinger’s superpositioned cat - to test for quantum properties in objects composed of as many as one billion atoms, possibly including the flu virus.

New research published today, Thursday 11 March, in New Journal of Physics, describes the construction of an experiment to test for superposition states in these larger objects.

Quantum optics is a field well-rehearsed in the process of detecting quantum properties in single atoms and some small molecules but the scale that these researchers wish to work at is unprecedented.

When physicists try to fathom exactly how the tiniest constituents of matter and energy behave, confusing patterns of their ability to do two things at once (referred to as being in a superposition state), and of their ‘spooky’ connection (referred to as entanglement) to their physically distant sub-atomic brethren, emerge.

It is the ability of these tiny objects to do two things at once that Oriol Romero-Isart and his co-workers are preparing to probe.

With this new technique, the researchers suggest that viruses are one type of object that could be probed. Albeit speculatively, the researchers hope that their technique might offer a route to experimentally address questions such as the role of life and consciousness in quantum mechanics.

In order to test for superposition states, the experiment involves finely tuning lasers to capture larger objects such as viruses in an ‘optical cavity’ (a very tiny space), another laser to slow the object down (and put it into what quantum mechanics call a ‘ground state’) and then adding a photon (the basic element of light) in a specific quantum state to the laser to provoke it into a superposition.

The researchers say, "We hope that this system, apart from providing new quantum technology, will allow us to test quantum mechanics at larger scales, by preparing macroscopic superpositions of objects at the nano and micro scale. This could then enable us to use more complex microorganisms, and thus test the quantum superposition principle with living organisms by performing quantum optics experiments with them."

More information: The published version of the paper "Towards quantum superpositions of living organisms" (Oriol Romero-Isart et al. New Journal of Physics 12 (2010) 033015) will be freely available online from Thursday 11 March. It will be available at iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/12/3/033015

Related Stories

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the classical problems in quantum mechanics concerns a man and his feline companion. The man has placed his cat in an opaque tank and is slowing pumping it full of poison. Now until ...

A report in the journal Nature describes the first experiment in which a single photon is coherently coupled to a single superconducting qubit (quantum bit or "artificial atom"). This represents a new paradigm in which ...

At the quantum level, the atoms that make up matter and the photons that make up light behave in a number of seemingly bizarre ways. Particles can exist in "superposition," in more than one state at the same ...

A new experiment in the US has come close to detecting quantum effects in a macroscopic object. Keith Schwab and colleagues from the National Security Agency (NSA) working at the University of Maryland have measured the vibrations ...

In quantum mechanics, a vanguard of physics where science often merges into philosophy, much of our understanding is based on conjecture and probabilities, but a group of researchers in Japan has moved one ...

Recommended for you

Just weeks after the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory, achieved first light, a team of scientists ...

Recent research conducted by scientists from the University of Granada sheds light on the nature of dark matter, one of the most important mysteries in physics. As indirect evidence provided by its gravitational ...

For the first time, researchers have produced a 3-D image revealing part of the inner structure of an intact, infectious virus, using a unique X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator ...

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) together with a colleague at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Strasbourg ...

Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), which are made from carbon-containing materials, have the potential to revolutionize future display technologies, making low-power displays so thin they'll wrap or fold ...

German scientists from RWTH Aachen, Research Center Jülich, TU Dresden and of the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden report that the current flow on the surface of a topological ...